I'm not exactly a beginner. I played with lucid dreaming last Summer and had several mild LD's. Recently I picked it up again and after only three days of dream journaling and setting my intention before going to sleep I had an LD. My problem is, not waking out the dreams prematurely, but the fact that they are 9/10 times very mild. I realize that I'm dreaming but still half believe my dream and am not fully in my senses. My intention is to eventually do deep inner work, and not just chase a high like many people seem to. I want to remember my mission, to learn about myself from LD's. Does this just take more time and effort?

Do you tell yourself over and over that you're going to be in a dream soon when you're falling asleep? I think this is what's been working for me. I do the usual reality checks but I swear it's telling myself these things when I'm falling asleep that works for me.

If they are mild, as another said, you need to be doing stabilization techniques. That should help to get deeper into the LD while at the same time waking your mind up more during the dream as it keeps you thinking and using your brain. You could count things in your dream or whatever, just try to use your normal waking mind to get it working better..